They wanted me to meet Jess’ nephew, a Major Eduardo Ermita of the Philippine Constabulary who was visiting Bacolod . I was the correspondent of The Manila Times then. That was the first and last time I met the now Little President. I followed up in the papers his rise to fame.

Jess’ nephew was not much of a talker, but obviously brilliant, and well behaved, without the swagger of a PMA graduate, a military officer. I recall telling Jess Ermita, “Your nephew will go places. He knows how to behave well in the presence of his uncle.”

He is a good lightning arrester. As Little President he attracts criticisms but they fizzle out. He is not controversial. He is like Jorge Vargas of Manuel Quezon. Vargas is the grandfather-in-law of Lito Coscolluela.

* * *

Today is the 71 st anniversary of Bacolod as a city. Our young people need to look back where we came from and view all the trials and triumphs, the adventures and adversities, and the sacrifices and successes that Bacolod went through.

Bacolod has a very colorful history. I lost my copy of the book of my friend Judge Rafael Guanzon “Bacolod In the Most Eventful Years 1895-1945.”

Paeng Guanzon wrote of the second quarter of the century as the most eventful and memorable.

He wrote of the turbulence of the early 1920s when two labor groups clashed in the face of a growing sugar industry. There was the “Kusog Sang Imol (Strength of the Poor)” led by labor leaders and the pro planters group, “Ang Mainawa-on (The Concerned)”.

I recall the late post war Bacolod Mayor, Aurelio Locsin, telling me he was the leader of “Kusog Sg Imol” clashing with the Mainawa-on. But clashes then were not violent.

Today Zay de la Cruz unites than all.

There was the Joffar murder that became a celebrated case. The Intrencherado rebellion, the cholera of 1930 that killed many people. Those burying relatives would just fall there near the grave and would just be buried. The dead buried in groups were not in coffin.

I recall in 1960 while renting a house at 1 st Street , neighbors dug a well when there was water shortage. Just four feet below we found human skeletons. It was one of the burial sites during the cholera.

The great strike of the Federacion Obreras de Filipinas, a very big labor group staged a simultaneous strike in the wharves of Negros and Iloilo that crippled sugar shipments.

Bacolod then was just a small community, clustered around the Church and a very small population, compared to today’s nearly half a million.

* * *

The ruling families then were the de la Rama, Gonzaga, Montelibano, Ramos, Ciocon, Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Ballesteros, Villanuevas… The Lizares and Lacson families were originally from Talisay.

The political leaders of the era were the Gonzagas, the Villanuevas, the Ramoses. The Gonzagas were the forebears of the late Mayor Romeo Gonzaga Guanzon, the Ramoses were the forebears of incumbent Mayor Evelio Ramos Leonardia, and the Montelibanos and Gatuslaos.

And there were many more I can only recall from the book of Rafael Guanzon which I cannot find now.

The famous lawyers at the time were Antonio Jayme, Matias Hilado, Agustin Seva, Ricardo Nolan, Rafael Alunan, Roque Hofileña, Valeriano and Agustin Gatuslao…

Some became “juez de paz” or justice of the peace that we call today as judges.

* * *

Interesting too were the journalists of the era. There was no radio then. DYDL was the first radio station here and it came only in the 50s. Its first manager, I think, was our friend Rene Tan.

The writers at the time were mostly the “ilustrados” or the educated and well known professionals, mostly lawyers.

Foremost of them were Antonio Jayme who, like many others wrote in Spanish. According to Paeng Guanzon who was a Spanish professor himself, the early writers wrote in florid Castillan language or in Hiligaynon. They wrote beautiful poems, too.

The other writers were Manuel Fernandez Yanson, another lawyer, Agustin Seva, Jose Ruiz de Luzuriaga.

They wrote in publication like “La Libertad,” and also “La Igualdad” published in Manila .

The publication here was “El Civismo” of Aurelio Locson that lasted up to Sept. 21, 1972 and jolted up only with Martial Law. Don Aurelio didn’t see reason to continue with it.

* * *

In the early years, Bacolod was just a small place, from Justicia St. , in the north to Libertad St. in the south. Mabini in the east and San Juan in the west.

When the city council changed Libertad to Pedro Hernaez and Justicia to Vicente Galo, people shouted, “In Bacolod there is no more justice and liberty.” Washington Street became Valeriano Gatuslao Street and Smith Street became Aurelio Locsin.

* * *

We must adore Clio, the Greek Muse of History. She tells us where we came from. And therefore, will lead us to where we are going. Don Aurelio Locsin became Negros Press Club president in his 80s. I was close to him, having edited his “Country Post” and putting in English his communications. He was Spanish speaking.

From him, too, I learned plenty of Bacolod history the many leaders who were grandchildren or great grandchildren of Spanish friars.

It seemed all of them were. Locsin sired well known journalists Raul, Alfio, and Gerardo.*

HIMAMAYLANis a small pueblo strung along a sandy beach under shady coco palms. The Himamaylan River, little more than a lagoon, throws into the straits that lie between Negros and Panay a crescent sand-bar behind which shelter fishing bancas (canoes), trading paraos, or occasional sugar lorchas (small schooners) from Iloilo. An eighteenth-century stone church with a connecting monastery fronts the sea. The monastery, known as the convento, furnished quarters for myself and men. The Spanish Recoleto friars had been driven away during the insurrection and had not yet returned. The building had been looted, but there remained a few articles of solid furniture. Until recently Inspector Smith had occupied the quarters and had left there a detachment of five soldiers who now went to swell my foot-sore score.

An American teacher also lived in the convent – which was big enough to shelter a dozen men and give each separate quarters – but he was a reserved individual who preferred to live and eat alone rather than pool with the only other American present. Smith had told me that the school-teacher knew the price of eggs, chicken, and rice better than a Filipino and boasted of living on twenty centavos a day. How we Constabulary officers laughed at the parsimonious pedagogues!

Like the ex-soldiers that we were, we scattered our money right and left; the school teachers, fresh from the economies of life in small American towns, saved three fourths of their pay. They were the wise virgins, even if their stinginess did occasion unfavorable comment among the Filipinos. It was not good to see an American living and eating like a tao. Harsh criticism we of the Constabulary thought and voiced at that time; yet now, now that the mellowing years have passed, I can see that those teachers were not necessarily avaricious. Who knows what debts and mortgages on little farms back in Iowa and Kansaswere paid off? Their pesos were hard enough earned, God woe, for they ran risks of death by disease and outlawry without the compensating excitement of the chase that we had. Maestros, we called the teachers; and the female of the species was known as maestra.

The presidente (mayor) of Himamaylan was a young Filipino with a dash of Spanish and Chinese blood, by the name Serafin Gatuslao. From the beginning he was the best friend of the Constabulary in Southern Negros. At his house I took my meals; from him I quickly learned of all the malhechores (offenders) in and around the pueblo. Although married and father of several children, Serafin was little older than myself. During the intervals between drilling and instructing my detachment I found him a boon companion. Together we went shooting to near-by rice paddies and ponds and loaded the little brown boys who were our retrievers with duck, teal, snipe, parrots, cockatoos, and I know not what other strange tropical birds.

On these expeditions we would talk intimately of provincial politics, of the babaylanes in the mountains, and of the cattle-stealing gangs in the lowlands which were beginning to be a more serious problem even than the babaylanes. Serafin was an exception in that I rarely found his counsels interested. The wealthier provincial Filipinos have so many parientes (relatives) and friends that their advice on conditions in their own localities must often be discounted. But although Serafin administered a hacienda a mile or two from town, he had few political ties in the South; his relatives and friends were in Northern Negros, and marriage to a girl of Himamaylan had brought him here to administer his wife’s property. He had first been made presidente by the military authorities and later was elected by the people as a tribute to his honest administration.

Sometimes we would go on a picnic – a sunsuman, as the Visayas call it – up a river to Serafin’s hacienda. The presidente’s wife, some pretty girls from neighboring haciendas, a few youths, Serafin and myself, made up the party. Embarking in bancas, we were paddled by Visayan boatmen up an estero (tidal creek) under overhanging mangroves through narrow passages where nipa palms fanned our faces. At the hacienda landing our lunch was waiting, the piece de resistance a suckling pig done up in banana leaves, all ready for the roast. Beyond the landing we neared the hills; the estero became less swampy and soon our boatmen poled us up a clear stream that rippled over a rocky bed. We found a smooth spot beneath a mango tree and there the suckling pig was roasted whole. The liver was removed, pounded up with the leaves of a bitter herb growing near the river, and stewed into a sauce to pour over the roasted cracklings. The taste of those cracklings can never entirely melt away; and the scene after lunch is easily recalled: the boatmen squatting in a circle around the remains of the succulent porker, the Filipina girls showing shapely legs as they paddled in the creek with many-colored skirts drawn up to knees, the young Filipinos splashing and flirting with the girls; beyond the bickering water a bamboo grove traced like giant maidenhair fern against a cobalt sky over which fleecy cirrus clouds drove with the steady northeast trades; a raucous-voiced, red-billed kingfisher perched on a waving frond of bamboo or diving to a pool unheedful of the picnicking crowd. And beneath the umbrageous mango Serafin and I, smoking innumerable cigarettes, the cares of office not even lightly resting on our brows.

It was at such times as these that I learned to know the Filipinos and their kindly traits as one may only know them by life in the provinces, isolated from other Americans. A man might live twenty years in Manila and know less about the Filipinos than by a few weeks’ residence in Himamaylan. Yet living in Himamaylan he must be simpatico – he must have sympathy with the life of the people. That Spanish word simpatico is hardly translated by its English equivalent “sympathetic.” When a Filipino says of an American that he is simpatico it means that he does not strike false notes in dealing with people of other races. A man might be sympathetic, yet full of race prejudice; but if simpatico he is free from it; a Filipino can give an American no higher praise. A man may be able, honest, hard-working, and full of assorted other virtues, yet quite unable to get along with the Filipinos, if lacking in that touch of humanity which enables one to

Be to their virtues very kind,

Be to their faults a little blind.

Often in after years I thought what a pity it was that some American officials I came to know could not have had the privilege of enjoying a sunsuman picnic with Serafin at Himamaylan. It might have made them simpatico – which they surely are not.

One of the effects of sugar limitations on the sugar barons of Negros Occidental was to invest in other fields of endeavor. While other Negrenses diversified their crops or went to mining, the Gatuslaos and the Sians had the vision to foresee the bright possibilities of the lumber industry. The result was the organization of the Carabalan Lumber Company or the NID which is one of the biggest lumber enterprises in Negros.

The NID was incorporated in October of 1936 with an authorized capital of P200,000 and the following were the founders:

Don Miguel Gatuslao

Don Valeriano gatuslao

Don Jose Gatuslao

Don Leonidas Gatuslao

Don Serafin Gatuslao

Don Jose M. Sian

Don Cescenciano M. Sian

Don Virgilio M. Sian

Don Benjamin M. Sian

Don Aurelio Estiller

The government granted to the company a 30-year lease embracing 52,000 hectares of rich forest lands of Binalbagan, HImamaylan, and Kabankalan. The mill started operation in May of the same year and since then has made so rapid a progress that in 1938 or less than two years after its erection the assets are now conservatively estimated at P600,000.

The NID specializes in South Negros red and white (rough or planed) lumber. It is considered as one of the country’s best lumber manufacturers and exporters of all kinds of Philippine hardwoods.

The Gatuslao-Sian project has contributed to the solution of the Negros Occidental unemployment problem. At present the company’s payroll handled over 600 employess and laborers.

The mill and office is located at Carabalan, Himamaylan, Negros Occidental and the administration is headed by Hon. Valeriano Gatuslao and Don Miguel M. Gatuslao, President and Vice-President respectively, of the NID Lumber Co.

A little over three scores ago, in the municipality of Murcia, was born Don Serafin Gatuslao, who eventually was to plant the seeds of a distinguished family that has since then become on of the wealthiest and most powerful families of Negros Occidental. More than the pomp of wealth and power, however, is the glory that comes hand in hand to a successful father.

Don Serafin studied in the “Instituto de Don Manuel Locsin” in Molo, Iloilo; and later in the “Instituto de Don Pedro Perez” in Jaro. He stayed in Iloilo until he had finished the highest courses the schools there could offer, after which he returned to Negros to help his parents in the pursuit of agriculture. It was then that love crossed his path when he met lovely Julita Monton, whom he married in 1897. It was out of this union that the present political and industrial dynasty of the Gatuslaos emerged.

After the American regime became firmly established in Negros, Don Serafin Gatuslao, was elected Himamaylan’s firt president. In the performance of his duties as Municipal President, Don Serafin won the respect and admiration of his people and of the foreigners. However, politics was not for him for agriculture was in his blood. For this reason he could not be prevailed upon for another term of office.

Don Serafine is the successful father of the following childred: Governor Valeriano Gatuslao; Mayor Agustin Gatuslao; Don Miguel Gatuslao; and Don Jose Hernando Gatuslao. Don Serafin is one of the men who helped to build Negros Occidental to what she is today, the premier province of the Philippines.

BACOLOD CITY, Nov. 21, 1961 – Congressman-elect Agustin M. Gatuslao of the third distrcit of Negros Occidental thanked recently the 11 Nacionalista municipal mayors for their wholehearted support for him during the pre-campaign and during the last ballotings which gave him a comfortable margin over his closest rival LP bet Jacinto Montilla.

Gatsualo, younger brother of Gov. Valeriano Gatuslao, thanked the electorate for reiterating their vote of confidence in him in last Tuesday’s elections.

He said he would continue his unfinished projects in the district which he had already started during his first and second terms in Congress.

This time, he said, it would be his third term which will be dedicated to improvements of the irrigation system, fishin and cocounut industry and the feeder roads be given more emphasis.

Gatuslao said he would also give priority in constructing more asphalt roads and concrete bridges particularly in the soutern town sot hat ambulat traders and transportation businesses would not hamper their daily schedule during rainy season.

BACOLOD CITY, Oct. 17, 1961 – A move to divide Negros Occidental into two provinces was bared by Rep. Agustin M. Gatuslao during a symposium sponsored by the Negros Press Club at Hinigaran where four of the five known congressional aspirants for the third district were the main speakers.

Rep. Gatuslao, brother of Gov. Valeriano M. Gatuslao and Himamaylan Mayor Jose M. Gatuslao, is running for reelection for congress in the third district under the Nacionalista banner.

He revealed that a bill to split this province was presented in the last session of Congress but failed to pass because of opposition in certain quarters.

“But this time,” he vowed, “I’ll press the division if I am elected, because the big size of the province demands it.”

Jacinto Montilla, LP official candidate, assailed Gatuslao for abandoning the welfare of the southern towns and barrios during the latter’s term of eight years as congressman of the third district. Montilla pledged that, if elected, he will emphasize the building of roads that will connect the hinterlands to the towns.

Other speakers were Dr. Macario Zafre (NP) and Cesar R. Borromeo (Ind.). Dr. Zafra, who is related to President Garcia, said that he will utilize his close relations with Malacañang to the advantage of the people in the third district.

Borromeo, a former newspaperman and past president of the Negros Press Club, said that his past reputation as a fighting member of the fourth estate is guarantee enough that he will protect the interests of the poor.